


'cause i've been falling apart (in the pouring rain)

by mahalidael



Category: Servants of Damnation - jaimejlaurell & partialllystars
Genre: Character Study, Demonic Possession, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, So Bear With me, also my beta reader gag of schills not knowing about the demon stuff is here, like 2/3s of this is just north and ari arguing, speaking of beta reading im not done with the book yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 14:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18639976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahalidael/pseuds/mahalidael
Summary: North climbed onto the balcony. The wind stung and an updraft slammed the door behind him. Spring had suddenly given way to winter again; it was late March. No matter.He breathed in deeply and looked out at the thick windbreak of evergreens. The castle was on the Great Lakes, near a place called Minnesota many years before he was born. If there wasn’t something between the water and the building, the whole side of the castle would be caked in ice.Much of the windbreak was now tinted yellow. North wondered if it was dying. All things die, eventually—Ari had told him that. Ari didn’t believe his own words. North repeated the proverb back once, and he was quiet for an entire blissful two days.





	'cause i've been falling apart (in the pouring rain)

**Author's Note:**

> I Told Jaime I Would Write Fanfiction For Them And I Was Being Totally Legit So Here You Go by Fall Out Boy

North climbed onto the balcony. The wind stung and an updraft slammed the door behind him. Spring had suddenly given way to winter again; it was late March. No matter.

He breathed in deeply and looked out at the thick windbreak of evergreens. The castle was on the Great Lakes, near a place called Minnesota many years before he was born. If there wasn’t something between the water and the building, the whole side of the castle would be caked in ice.

Much of the windbreak was now tinted yellow. North wondered if it was dying. All things die, eventually—Ari had told him that. Ari didn’t believe his own words. North repeated the proverb back once, and he was quiet for an entire blissful two days.

The sound that North had come out for repeated itself: pseudo-gunfire coming across the sky. So he wasn’t mistaken. He closed his eyes.

The maples in the garden made that sound around negative twenty, when their sap froze up, so it wasn’t unfamiliar. But he’d only ever heard the windbreak start cracking when he was… either four, or twenty-four. Either way, his mother had still been alive. The number itself seemed inconceivably small.

His fingers were turning purple on the iron rail, and the muscles in his jaw were starting to spasm painfully. Those things weren’t related. Finally, Ari said, “Are you  _ trying _ to make us sick?”

“Maybe.”

“Get back inside.”

North licked his lips. The wind was easily biting through the thin ruffled shirt hanging off him. “Five more minutes.”

“Is this really how much you dislike me?” Ari mused, somewhere. It was always a headache for North’s ears to try and process where that voice was coming from. Ari was somewhere at the base of his skull, so his brain was trying to tell him Ari’s voice was coming out of his own mouth. “That you’ll give yourself exposure to be rid of me? You’re literally willing to die to keep me from being happy? Am I reading this correctly?”

North released his death-grip on the rail of the balcony, his skin momentarily sticking to the crust of ice on its surface, and went back inside without answering.

When he did, he saw the knife sitting on the table.

His hand went to it. It was analogous, perhaps, to being a chain-smoker. You say you’ll quit, but your brain stem has you reach for the pocket you keep your packs in just the same. Not that North would know about that. A few times, he’s taken an offered pipe, but it’s never ended well.

He made it very difficult, fingers shaking with stiffness, but those fingers still closed around the handle.

North breathed deeply.

“North,” Ari said. “Get the buzzer.”

North’s eyes flicked to the panel on the wall, buttons labeled Letssee, Actial. Gemini. "Just let me think.”

“There is nothing to think about.” His hand tightened.

“We can’t just,” North said, and despite still trembling with mild exposure a drop of sweat rolled into his eye and he couldn’t reach up to wipe it away, “go around stabbing people.” Gemini was warm. Much warmer than he was, even on a hot day, and his hands were a little bit rough.

Ari chuckled. North’s jaw spasmed again. “Can’t we? A dynasty lasting millennia is made of teflon. The Tenebraes are legendary—”

(Legendary is what people call you when they’re about to forget you.)

“—but oh, wait. Why  _ is _ that, again? It’s not like no one ever made an attempt on our life.”

Our life, singular, because in overview that’s what it was. North combed the vast hive of his memory. How many times had he been “assassinated,” or nearly, truly assassinated? He didn’t know. The lies and truths mixed, clinging to each other in a mental sea. Short of life jackets. It was hard to reach what he really wanted, and when he tried, the tide disgorged something else altogether. Humans weren’t meant to have such old minds. Ari’s extra headspace was the only true benefit to his possession, making him wholer than a shattered pile of memories, albeit a wholeness with holes. He thought of the time he was poisoned and only got the smell of roasting sausage in a very quiet and wet place. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “2819. Where did we eat after the Nova York summit? I was wearing a wig, and there were potato dumplings on the table.”

Ari threw up North’s hands in frustration. “Damn it, you’re not even paying attention, are you? You were never this inattentive. Not until you hired  _ him _ ,” he hissed.

North smiled slightly, involuntarily, at the thought of Gemini. At first he’d been agitated by how tall he was and started wearing gradually higher heeled shoes to try and close the distance, to instill some respect. By the time he’d realized closing the distance might mean something else entirely, it was too late, and he already had his arms around him. Until he choked. Until Ari intervened.

“He’ll kill you,” Ari said.

North snorted. “Oh, and you won’t?”

“I haven’t for two thousand years. That’s pretty good. You don’t know his statistics.”

“Maybe I’m  _ tired _ of this. Maybe I want to change.”

“Feh! I let you change the curtains and such every time you fake your death. I thought the red and black looked nice, but no, we’ve got to pretend we’re a different person with a different sense of taste!”

North’s eyes reflected in the knife’s blade. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You are infected with sympathy, that’s your problem,” Ari grumbled. “Is that what you want? Softness? Slowness? Before you had me, you had only sixteen exceptionally dull years. Now you’re a statue of solid diamond, racing across the centuries.” North’s knees suddenly went weak and he fell to the ground, arm flailing out at the last moment to avert a self-stabbing. “Do you want to go back to the primordial slop? To age? To die? What if he decides he doesn’t love you anymore? You’ll die with no one.”

North, unable to release the knife, crawled towards his bed. It was tedious, given Ari’s lack of cooperation and how he had to use his free hand to move Mabilene’s stuff out of his path. Last she’d been in here she’d left some things that, hopefully, were from work, not play. There was handcuffs, a gas mask, and a nightstick. “There are things worse than dying alone,” he grunted.

“Oh, indeed,” Ari conceded joyfully, “and this is certainly not the worst of them. I  _ could _ just turn off the healing powers that are keeping your telomeres from shrinking, for say, a century, until your organs give out, but I can still keep you alive when that happens. Imagine, if you will, going through the decomposition process while fully conscious. Maggots are your friends in that situation.”

North swallowed hard. “You don’t scare me.”

“I should. Come on.” His wrist flicked upward, proudly displaying the blade. It was a carving knife from Schills’ kitchen, swindled while micromanaging the royal chefs. Normally North’s staff was informed that the prince could not, under any circumstances, be allowed a sharp object. “Look at me. Look at me.” Slight pressure in North’s jaw pushed his gaze to the reflection. “Listen. His family is  _ dead _ . You would do him well a favor. Just,” he said, pressing the very tip of the knife under his ear, “just stick it in this spot, and pull it out. He’ll bleed out so quickly it won’t even hurt. And those Christian folk, they’re big on their martyrs. Perhaps in a few more centuries he’ll be a saint—”

North grabbed the handcuffs and snapped them around his wrists, chaining himself to the bedpost.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING,” Ari cried audibly, but in panic he’d released his hold on the rest of North’s body, allowing him to drop the knife and kick it across the room.

The knife skittered across the carpet and hit the opposite wall as both prince and demon processed what had just happened.

Then there was screaming—one part rage, one part pain, and entirely bloodcurdling.

It cut off when North’s throat closed up. “Give it back! Give it back  _ now! _ ” Ari howled.

North gagged as Ari tried pushing the knife towards himself with the heel of his shoe, but his leg fell short as North’s eyes started rolling back. Release, sharp breath. Sudden, hard pressure on his back sent him face-down on the floor, hands dangling awkwardly above him.

Frantic, violent blows all over. North buried his face in the carpet. “Ungrateful runt! Were it not tantamount to inviting you into my home, I’d damn you! Where’s the key?”

“I don’t know,” North said hoarsely. “I just saw the cuffs.”

Ari took full control, grinding the chain against the bed, screaming and biting the post. “When—will—you—learn?” he shouted, banging his head against the wall with each word until blood ran down his temple and North was teary-eyed. “Why won’t you let me help you? I’m doing this for your own good!”

North gasped for breath. “You don’t care about me. You just want me like a suit, or a doll.”

Ari screamed and thrashed inarticulately, bloodying North’s wrists and knocking him around for what felt like forever until someone appeared—and it wasn’t the right someone. Instead of Mabilene, or Actial, or, devil have mercy, Gemini, Schills, fucking  _ Schills _ , poked his head into the room. “Excuse me, but I heard something up here and…” he trailed off when he saw Ari poke his head above the mattress, eyes pitch dark, blood and mascara black tears streaming down his face.

“Hey,” Ari rasped. “Hey. I, um, fell over. Could you do me a favor and hand me that knife?” He nodded at the carving knife.

“Uh…” Schills looked like he’d just hit Bambi on the freeway. “Let me get my knife handling gloves?”

Then Schills left. It occurred to North that he’d never personally told him about the possession situation. He assumed someone else had let the beans spill, but… oops?

Ari’s train of thought broken, he settled for grumbling softly as he ground the post, and North rested his cheek against the wall and sniffled. Ari had done the demonic equivalent of working him over with a baseball bat. His shoulder felt dislocated. He was tempted to just leave it out of its socket. All the worse to kill you with, my dear. “Quit whining,” Ari said. “I wouldn’t have had to hurt you if you just did what I asked.”

Eventually Schills and someone else came to the door. “I just heard him screaming and went to check on him and he’s bleeding and his eyes are…” Schills made a weird, explanatory-sounding noise.

“Stay here, I’ll handle him,” Gemini said. North whimpered in relief before Ari tightened his jaw.

“Such a good idea, that isn’t,” Actial muttered. “Agitated, Ari gets around you.”

“I’m not here for Ari, I’m here for North. Let me in.” The door swung open. Letssee and Actial came in full uniform, while Gemini was still in his nightclothes. He guessed Schills had summoned Letssee and Actial, but Gemini had stormed down in his own concern.

North almost yelped when Ari jerked into a sitting position. “You!” he snapped, even though North could tell his expression didn’t match. “Get over here!”

Gemini’s face scrunched up in confusion before his gaze met the discarded knife. “Oh my...! Damn,” he finished flatly. “Where did he get that?”

“From the kitchen, he probably did,” Actial said.

“Well, at least it’s clean,” he said, but his tone was bleak. His eyes flicked to North’s arms. North managed to summon the will it took to shake his head. Ari had much more effective ways to hurt him.

Actial picked the knife up and handed it back to Schills. Schills took the handle delicately, between forefinger and thumb. “Cut anyone with it, he did not,” Letssee insisted. “The type to wipe down the weapon afterwards, Ari isn’t.”

Ari looked back and forth between Letssee and Actial, like he was sizing up the situation. If it were just Letssee in the room, he could probably kill Gemini with no trouble. Actial, though… he seemed to realize what Ari was pondering and stepped subtly forward. North didn’t understand Actial that well, and he suspected Ari didn’t either, but homicide in front of Letssee seemed off-limits.

Ari didn’t leave—North could still feel him seething in his blood—but he did let his charge back in the driver’s seat, at which point the latter collapsed against the wall, sobbing openly.

It was time for Schills to leave. He had seen everything. Letssee hurried him out the door, presumably to give a much-needed explanation. Actial stood by, scrutinizing the both of them.

Gemini tentatively came forward to comfort him. Tentatively, because they both knew what happened last time he got too close.

Gemini wiped some of the runny makeup off his face. North’s lip involuntarily curled in a snarl, but a fraction of a second later, Actial said, “Anything, before you do: cleaned vomit out of this carpet four times this week, I have, and clean it one more time, if I have to, killing both of you, I am.”

Well, at least he was still talking backwards, but it took them a moment to unpack all that before Ari went back in his tantrum hole.

Gemini took the back of North’s head and gently pulled him to his chest. Once the panic subsided, he didn’t feel much pain. He didn’t feel much of anything. There was the pull in his shoulder of tendons trying to come back together, his arms still held awkwardly to his side. “Hey, Actial,” Gemini said. “Can you help me find the key to these?”

Actial side-eyed him, as much as a demon without pupils could side-eye, and took the key to the handcuffs off the nightstand. He made short order of the binding. North slumped weakly against Gemini, who examined the other’s wrists. “Does this hurt?”

“I dunno. ...Dirty,” he managed, noticing the blood, snot, and mascara he was smearing on Gemini’s shirt.

“It’ll be fine, I’ll blot club soda on it or something—is that really what you’re worried about right now?” Gemini said.

North sighed deeply.

“Dislocated, this joint is,” Actial said, putting a hand on his elbow and another on the muscle connecting shoulder and neck. “Reduce it, I must.”

“Oh my—” Gemini cut himself off and winced when he saw the uneven line of his shoulders. “What did he do?”

North averted his eyes. “He—he doesn’t like how close you’re getting to me.”

Gemini seemed to bare his teeth without realizing it, and North felt that that summed up the situation.

Actial started tugging at his shirt, and North helped him with his good hand. Gemini took the gauze out of North’s desk—even though he seemed terribly upset that North just had gauze in his desk—and asked if he could help Actial with anything. “Fine, it is,” Actial said with grim resignation. It wasn’t fine, not in the least, but Actial had done this many times over the years. North steeled himself for it. At least it wasn’t as bad as the time he dislocated his hip.

North yelped. Actial let go. Gemini just barely kept him from falling flat on the carpet again. North was lifted up—feeling a funny little pang in his heart at the physical contact—and placed on the bed, where he was made to sit up while Gemini wrapped his wrists.

Actial narrowed his eyes and waited until the scene was to his satisfaction before stepping just outside, with the door standing slightly open, so North could see that he was still watching.

It was stiflingly quiet, but eventually Gemini broke the silence. “How often does he do this?”

North closed his eyes. “Too often. Well,” he added, “not so loudly.”

Gemini smoothed North’s hair back. It felt good. Too good. North was afraid he might bite his finger off. “He can’t do this forever.”

“But he’s already done it for half of forever.”

“There’s no half of forever,” Gemini scoffed, “the same way there’s no half of infinity. I thought you were a prince, don’t you have a college education or something?”

“Mmm, feels like it’s been half. Also, I’ve been sixteen for that whole time.”

“I still think you can break the c—”

“Careful,” North warned.

“I—” Gemini waved his hand. “You know what I mean. Yeah.”

“Yes, but to do  _ that _ , you need  _ him _ out of the way. Seems a bit Catch-22, doesn’t it?”

Gemini didn’t respond. He took North’s hands, still heavy with rings, and examined his work. Then he squeezed both those hands in his own. “You think it’s safe?”

“For what?” North mumbled.

“For me to hold you.”

North did a quick sweep of the room for sharp objects. Actial was still standing just slightly in view of the bed. “I think he tired us out.” He felt a faint smile play at his lips. “Just… just do it, before you have a better idea.”

Gemini swung one leg up onto the bed, then the other, and pulled his prince into his lap. North nuzzled at his shoulder. It was warm and safe, safer than he’d felt in years. He felt eyes on the back of his head and looked up.

Gemini was staring at his lips. “You…”

“Me,” North encouraged.

“You have a split lip.”

He laughed.


End file.
